Crystals in the Nu Campaign games

I've been considering to let go of the ability to lay large mine fields. This way you'll be able to get all of those three and even include the Ion Starbase Shield on top. What would you consider the best combination of upgrades?

asteroid fields too limit mine fields and allow more freedom of movement for the enemies.

are crystals hurt by these elements or can they be used to gain an advantage? what about nebulas?

Cinnamon, I would define good according to the progress described here  about a year and a half ago.  Plus there are some additional thoughts according to the new Nu Campaign advantages.  Tom convinced me the gunboats are a very nice advantage.  And I consider the two other impact advantages as the Desert Habitation growth advantage and Starbases Lay Mines.  To me, this means that Crystals should build more ships in Campaign games than shown on the charts and they should eventually build more starbases too.

As for me in my Campaign game as Crystals (only on turn 16), I have built a starbase at an Amphibian planet devoted to building gunboats.  This will hike up the # of ships that I build compared to normal.  And since I did indeed invest in starbase laying mines, I anticipate that I will build more starbases than normal as well compared to my Progress Guide .. although perhaps not achieve the great # of Bases that tom n has been able to build.

Looking at the stats, I would have hoped to see more of both (more ships and more starbases) in the stats that I discovered for nearly all of the Crystals playing in Campaign games so far.  I agree with the balanced #s you shared - only 1 Crystal players should win every 11 games.  To date, the Crystals can finish a VGAP game in the top three or the top five; in fact they place in the top five more than average due to their great defensive abilities.  

The challenge for Crystals is to end on top as #1 -- which I think they do less than 1 out of 11 times in normal VGAP games.  But I think the Campaign advantages should help them increase their #1 winning percentage to average.  I like to monitor how well they are all doing during this Beta phase.  And encourage current Campaign Crystal players to give the rest of us any hints here on how to improve our games so we can indeed win at least 1 out of every 11 Nu Campaign games.

Starbase fighters that are shot down are lost, but fighters from planetary defenses potentially come back in the next battle. Damage to the planet destroys defense posts proportianl to the amount of damage and thus possibly reduce the number of fighters. Every planetary fighter shot down will also result in a defense post being destroyed. In the next battle the planet will start with 0% damage again, but with adjusted planetary battlemass, number or beams, and number of fighters. I assume the shield should be up again... but not sure here. (http://www.donovansvgap.com/help/combat.htm)

For example if the planet has 60 defense posts at the beginning, then you shoot down all 8 fighters, then the number of defense posts is reduced by 8 in the next round. At 52 defense posts, you'd still fight with 7 fighters... looking almost the same. For higher numbers it might even result in the same number of fighters.

In general, these cheap ships can help deplete your opponents torps as you send them in for the first battle, hoping to trade your cheap Topaz for his larger warship.

   I chose the Ion Storm Immunity but for this game it's been a waste. The odds of it saving a few ships from a level 4 or 5 storm are remote. 

   I still think it's wise to build a ton of starbases, at turn 74 I have 46 bases and more on the way. Unfortunately, my Birdman enemy has 115!  I feel like I'm a pretty decent Crystal player, but beware of a skilled Birdman player (like Joshua). In a campaign format his additional advantages have helped him build a huge economy (education ships, starbase money transfer) to supply his endless stream of Dark Wings. My best battleships can't compete. and with 10 heavy phasers he sweeps 3000 or so mines per ship.  If I should attempt to intercept one of his ships that are out of fuel, I usually find a cloaked Dark Wing waiting to kill my Emeralds. In short, a Crystal nightmare! 

   Hindsight being 20/20 I suppose I should have been more aggressive in finding weak carrier races to pursue. Crystals do much better against visible enemies. I wish the Campaign add-ons would have given the Xtals a more powerful Diamond Flame, with 10 beams and 8 tubes, to give us a true battleship!

    I made an error early on in thinking that my ally and I would be coordinating attacks throughout the game, with his stronger warships doing the heavy fighting, while my Emeralds and Rubys lay webs everywhere. What I need to remember is these games take months, and lives change and can get very busy. Through no fault of his, our cooperation is not what it was. We even considered searching out a replacement (I was going to IM you), but I think the writing is on the wall, as they say, and next time I'll build a more self-sufficient military.

    I agree that a big part of this game is calculating trade-offs. I learned the value (as a Fed) of sending a cheap Kittyhawk or Thor as first-to-fight. In these Campaign games, sending in a cheap Imperial Topaz to eat up torpedoes would make sense. 

    By the way, Joshua said he would look into why these new Imperial ships are NOT avoiding torpedoes as well as expected. They seem to be getting hit 1:4 instead of 1:10.